There’s not better visual metaphor for the real estate crash – And if the buildings were closer together, a domino effect would have occurred. This [photo] is not a Photoshop fake. Really not. Mish knows what exactly happened in China [via @muesli]:

An underground garage was being dug on the south side, to a depth of 4.6 meters.

The excavated dirt was being piled up on the north side, to a height of 10 meters.

The building experienced uneven lateral pressure from south and north.

This resulted in a lateral pressure of 3,000 tons, which was greater than what the pilings could tolerate. Thus the building toppled over in the southerly direction.

In Austria we have a proverb about news which aren’t actually newsworthy that translates: “This is as interesting as a bag of rice which toppled over in China”. But his is definitely not a bag of rice in this case – spooky!

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